Marlene Stroh: Woman helps children learn to help others

For Marlene Stroh, it’s not about fame, it’s not about glory, and it has never been about herself. It’s about the children. Raised on strong Christian ideals, founded in helping others, Stroh had the opportunity to pass on these values to children twenty years ago, and has never stopped.

Back in 1986, she was working at the Greeley Tribune as an assistant circulation director, which had her in charge of all the newspaper carriers — more than 350 children. She used this to start teaching children how they could help other children, since, she believes, children relate best to other children.

“The kids put flyers out to customers and asked them to save their newspapers,” Stroh said. “We raised $650 and bought stuffed animals.”

From there, the organization Candy Canes and Caring was born.

The beneficiary of Candy Canes for the first five years was a United Way-funded daycare for needy children called Parent/Child Learning Center. Since then, a couple of different organizations have been the focus in the program’s two decades of helping children.

With the help of the prison chaplain ministry, fate paired Candy Canes with the children affected by parents going to prison.

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“For the most part, about 90 percent of the families have one or both parents in prison, and have grandparents or aunts and uncles raising them,” Stroh said. “These are the most appreciative families.”

The children in these families are often the ones who are forgotten in the dust of the justice system, said Kathy Gardner, a volunteer minister at the Weld County Jail, who helps select the families chosen for the Candy Canes and Caring project.

“With people like Marlene, they give people that hope that goes through the year and something to look forward to,” Gardner said. “She has touched so many people.”

Every December, Stroh and her growing group of volunteers throw a party for needy families in the area. This party lets children work on Christian-themed crafts, enjoy a visit from

“It’s fabulous that it’s this program is something she initiates on her own, and she gathers enough people to give these children a Christmas they would have not usually had,” said Cheryl Jelinek, who plays Mrs. Claus alongside her husband at the Christmas party.

And through the years, Stroh’s strong faith and determination to keep the organization alive has rippled out through the volunteers she touched.

“All the people that she has picked up in 20 years have since gone their separate ways with their employment and such,” said Tonya Van Beber, world history and reading teacher at University Middle School. “But they have all come back to her, to make sure they are aiding people who are less fortunate.”

Van Beber, who has been a part of the fundraiser since its beginning in 1986, has brought it into her job at the school through getting children involved in fundraising for the past three years, raising anywhere from $700 to $1200 for the children.

The reason why Van Beber has been so inspired to continue this is because she has seen the good the program does and because of the impact Stroh has had on her spiritual life.

“She was a person who came in at a point in my life when I was exploring my faith,” she said. “She was an important person in showing me God, religion, and what that can do to provide for people.”

And it is truly Stroh’s faith that has been the inspiration for everything she does, and is contagious among all she comes in contact with.

“She brings people together, who all learn something just because they have met her,” Van Beber said. “She is a testimony to no matter where you are in life you can give to someone. Whether you have $1 in the bank or $1 million, you always have time that you can give.”

Stroh can’t talk about her commitment to helping children without talking about her faith. The Christmas party is filled with Christian crafts, and takes place in a church. The time that she doesn’t spend running this organization, she divides between being an office administrator at Trinity Lutheran Church and as the children’s ministry director at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church.

With more than twenty years since she found her way to help children, she still has more youth volunteers participating than adults. This fact stays true to her goal of Candy Canes and Caring being about teaching children how to help children.

Although Stroh is now into her 60s, a time when a lot of people think about retiring, it is the children that started everything, and it is the children that keep her going.

“I always go back to one of the very first years, when I had a little boy, about 5 or 6 years old,” Stroh said. “He grabbed a hold of me after we were leaving and he look at me and said ‘will you be back next year?’ and every time I think about quitting, I think of Jose.”